Ahead of a contentious election, Quebec politicians examine public-private dynamics in research funding

By Mark Mann

Amid other fierce disputes leading up to the Quebec election on October 1^st, when the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) won a decisive majority with 74 seats, the four main parties convened on September 10 to debate their positions on science, technology and innovation, at an event hosted by the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS). Four candidates for Quebec’s National Assembly gathered at the bar l’Barouf in Montreal to declaim and defend their parties’ vision for the future of science in Quebec.

The question of what role the private sector should play in publicly-funded research animated the debate. Alejandra Zaga Mendez, the candidate representing Québec Solidaire—the upstart left-wing sovereigntist party that has made surprising gains in popularity during the campaign— in Bourassa-Sauvé, emphasized the need to defend researchers from over-reliance on corporate finance. Universities should protect free thought and scientific independence. The government has a responsibility to prevent private interest from manipulating research agendas, she argued.

Speaking for CAQ—a centre-right party that represents itself as pro-economy—in Chambly, Jean-François Roberge expressed his party’s enthusiasm for stronger public-private partnerships to support research. He highlighted his concern that science be "stably and predictably funded,” and he denounced the centrist Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), which has held a majority government since 2014, for its austerity with regard to research funding. Roberge promised better pay and more jobs for researchers under a CAQ government. If there are more researchers, there will be more research, he declared. CAQ wants to use tax credits to incentivize companies to hire people with graduate degrees.

Hélène David, the Minister for Higher Education and for the Status of Women with the PLQ, defended her party’s track record for allocating funds to research. She also emphasized the need to protect the “total independence” of research funds from politicized meddling in how research subsidies are evaluated.  David underscored the need for research to occur at the college level, not just at universities and research centres, and argued that research should be more evenly distributed throughout the regions of Quebec.

The Parti Québécois (PQ) candidate for Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne, Dieudonné Ella Oyono, argued for improving Quebec’s track record for commercializing innovations by strengthening the links between cégeps, universities, and the private sector. Oyono emphasized the benefit of internships for university and cégep students in STI fields.  He also promoted the concept of a new recruitment program that would draw doctoral students to Quebec.

In terms of bigger visions for the future of science in Quebec, Québec Solidaire promised free tuition at all levels of education, from daycare to post-secondary. The PLQ has announced three research initiatives: $585 million for the Quebec Research and Innovation Strategy, $205 million for the Quebec Life Science Strategy, and $100 million for the creation of a Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute.

CAQ maintained its plan to create a Silicon Valley-style innovation hub along the St Lawrence River, the Projet Saint-Laurent, albeit more quietly than when it was first announced in 2013. Similar in scale and ambition to the PLQ’s Plan Nord, the project would cultivate partnerships between universities and corporations, by redirecting half of existing tax credits for companies toward new innovation projects.

None of the parties advertised grand changes to the existing Quebec Research and Innovation Strategy, though Mendez underlined her party’s belief that scientific research in Quebec should serve the province’s “ecological and economic transition.” Research should align with social goals, of which climate change adaption is the most preeminent.

Science in Quebec doesn’t have its own ministry, nor does it fall under the Ministry for Higher Education, as some researchers wish it would. Instead, it belongs to the Ministry for the Economy, Science, and Innovation (MESI). This situation isn’t likely to shift, though Roberge expressed a wish for more alignment between the two ministries.

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